Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Umbrella Me With Otherness

Pavement imagines a bicycle

Monday's warm spring showers washed the day's dust off.I paused at a stop sign to watch the cars roar past, headlights twinkling the drizzle.I thought to take photos of their streaking passage, but the images did not please me.This one did: my machine's image spackled across the pavement.My watts kept me warm. My spin carried me home. The cactus and I had water running down our skin. I'm the one on the corner with a bicycle, catching raindrops on my tongue.The cactus is the other one, shorter, greener, with more spikes.Both happy with the spring rain.A BMW SUV changed lanes on a quiet street with big puddles to avoid drenching me.A woman in a black car reversed back into her driveway to let me know she saw me, recognized me, waved and smiled back, umbrellaling me with her dry thoughts for a damp cyclist.Umbrella me with otherness. Hope at me in the falling water. Fire mirror neurons in an infinite regress of back scattered subliminal.You. I. Get up. Go ride.

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Thriving on two wheels

I commute by bicycle in Phoenix, Arizona, a place suited for riding bicycles of all types, with weather, mountains, roads, canals, and paths to keep me forever spinning. My favorite bike tools are an open mind, anger control, curiosity, compassion, common ground, and the search for knowledge. With coffee.

Dedicated to the Lost and Bold

Arizona 3 foot law ARS §28-735. Overtaking bicycles; civil penalties A. When overtaking and passing a bicycle proceeding in the same direction, a person driving a motor vehicle shall exercise due care by leaving a safe distance between the motor vehicle and the bicycle of not less than three feet until the motor vehicle is safely past the overtaken bicycle. B. If a person violates this section and the violation results in a collision causing: 1. Serious physical injury as defined in section 13-105 to another person, the violater is subject to a civil penalty of up to five hundred dollars. 2. Death to another person, the violater is subject to a civil penalty of up to one thousand dollars. C. Subsection B of this section does not apply to a bicyclist who is injured in a vehicular traffic lane when a designated bicycle lane or path is present and passable